(w) Dan Slott
(a) Ryan Stegman (line art) Edgar Delgado (color art)
I always knew that Marvel's act of replacing Spider-Man's consciousness with that of his arch-nemesis Doctor Octopus was a stunt, and felt a little insulted when Marvel insisted that the change was permanent. I understood the rather obstinate misdirection of course; it was only by selling the storyline as a permanent alteration of the status quo that they could get the attention that they did.
I wasn't initially interested in seeing this story play out (I was willing to wait until Peter came back, and in any case I stopped collecting The Amazing Spider-Man on a regular basis some time ago). When I leafed through an issue, though, I decided to give the first few issues a shot.
Superior Spider-Man is basically the story of Doctor Octopus occupying Peter Parker's body, and with the first conclusion of the first three-issue storyline, it is my honest opinion that Dan Slott has made a pretty convincing case for this radical, albeit temporary shift in status quo.
In his first few days as Spider-man, Otto Octavius goes about the business of being a superhero, determined to be a better Spider-Man than Peter Parker was. In some ways, he actually is, using his skills with technology and the resources at his disposal courtesy of Peter's job at Horizon Laboratories to broaden his reach; who needs to listen to police scanners when dozens of robot spiders are all over the city watching out for crime, after all? In the course of the first three issues, the new, "superior" Spider-Man takes on a new iteration of the Sinister Six and a more heavyweight Spider-Man villain, the Vulture, and for a change, wins, a rather pleasant feeling for Octavius.
He is considerably less successful, however, at living out Peter's personal life; Otto spends issue #2 making advances on Mary Jane, only to be frustrated at every turn. Interestingly enough, though, Otto makes a decision that is surprisingly selfless at the end of the issue.
One part of his personality that Octavius cannot seem to unlearn, however, is the brutality with which he dispatches his foes. Although he does not kill anyone, by the end of issues #1 and #3 he actually comes pretty close, and the latter does not go unnoticed by Peter's ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper, who also happens to be a policewoman.
(mild spoiler alert)
Of course, another complication to the story is that Peter Parker is apparently not as dead as people thought he was at the end of Amazing Spider-Man #700; he lurks somewhere in the back of his old body's mind, and manifests as a "ghost" beside Octavius. He actually stops Octavius from killing a supervillain, though Otto is not aware that his old enemy is still around. It's an amusing and encouraging story device, as it is through this that Marvel establishes that at some point, Parker will be wearing the webs again, though it is overplayed from time to time.
(end spoiler alert)
When Marvel Comics unmasked Spider-Man at the end of Civil War #2 then-editor Axel Alonso boasted that they had something like two years' worth of stories to tell with an unmasked Spidey, but by the time they hit the "reset" button called One More Day, they had only told a little over one year worth of stories.
Truth be told, with well over a year between now and the premiere of the next "Amazing Spider-Man" movie, I'm hoping Marvel actually shows some balls and sticks to this current status quo for awhile before returning Peter Parker to his body in a grand, lavishly-illustrated six-issue story arc or something like that. Slott is off to a pretty good start, and it would be a shame if they called it a day too quickly. There's something fascinating about looking at Spider-Man's life from a supervillain's point of view. Octavius is clearly still an egomaniac, but not only is Slott letting us see another side of him; he's actually showing us readers why Doc Ock would actually make a very effective Spider-Man, and the reasons are entirely consistent with the things Ock has done as a character over the last several decades. In some ways, it actually plays out like an extended What If? issue, and is actually a lot of fun when appreciated that way.
The weak link, unfortunately, is artist Ryan Stegman, whose scratchy line work, as hard as this may be to believe, actually made me miss Humberto Ramos (who will be taking up the art duties for issues #7 and 8) and definitely made me miss Stefano Caselli, who has long since moved on from the webslinger. Stegman is a competent artist; he tells the story well enough, and there's even a hint of J. Scott Campbell in some of his characters, but his work just doesn't sing to me. Still, Slott could have done a lot worse in terms of choosing his collaborator.
I doubt I'll stick around for the entire "Doc Ock as Spider-Man" storyline, whether it lasts a year or five, but I can at least say now that I gave Slott the benefit of the doubt, and will probably stick around for a few issues more. Much to Slott's (and Marvel's) credit; what they've done here is something unique. Plenty of superheroes have died, from Jean Grey to Superman to the Human Torch, only to come back eventually, and Spider-Man himself has been replaced by his clone, but this is a first; outside of the odd What If? or Elsewords issue I don't think this particular plot twist has ever played out for this long. It will inevitably get old, of course, as all gimmick-based status quos tend to do (and as will Brian Michael Bendis' "original X-Men out of time" shtick), but what's worth following is how well Slott plays it out, and if the first three issues are any indication, the Spider-Man fans who came back after the dust settled from the furor kicked up by The Amazing Spider Man #700 should be in for a treat.
4/5
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